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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / KCBS / AP / BCN) ― The Olympic torch went on a topsy-turvy, hide-and-seek tour of San Francisco after being rerouted away from tens of thousands of demonstrators and spectators who crowded the city's waterfront Wednesday afternoon to witness the flame's symbolic journey to the Beijing Games.

The formal closing ceremony at Justin Herman Plaza was canceled and the torch was whisked away by a security-laden convoy to San Francisco International Airport. Massive crowds had gathered along the original Embarcadero route to support and protest the flame.

The last-minute, surprise changes were made amid security concerns following chaotic protests over the torch in Paris and London and earlier this week when demonstrators scaled the Golden Gate Bridge to unfurl Tibetan banners.

Mayor Defends Route Change

Mayor Gavin Newsom said that the well choreographed fake-out was prompted by the size and behavior of the crowds amassing outside of McCovey Cove, the site of the relay's opening ceremony.

There was "a disproportionate concentration of people in and around the start of the relay," he said in an interview, while traveling in a caravan that accompanied the torch.

In particular, the mayor cited protesters who had surrounded a San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency bus at Bryant Street and the Embarcadero about 12:30 p.m. The mob mistakenly thought the bus was transporting the torch; the Olympic flame was not aboard.

But Newsom's rerouting decision quickly came under political fire.

"Gavin Newsom lied to the people of San Francisco," said Aaron Peskin, president of the Board of Supervisors, who claimed the mayor failed to fulfill his promise to let both opponents and supporters of the torch voice their opinions. "It turned out to be nothing but a public relations event orchestrated by the government of China."

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that the San Francisco leg of the torch run had proceeded without major disruptions, although it said the route had been changed "due to threats by Tibetan separatists and their supporters to storm the relay."

Less than an hour before the relay began, Newsom and other officials cut the original six-mile torch route nearly in half and decided to move its location.

 See a Google map of the original and altered torch run

At the opening ceremony prior to the relay, Norman Bellingham, chief operating officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee and former Olympic kayak champion, welcomed the torch.
 
"It is my great honor to welcome the flame to the city of San
Francisco and I wish it all the best as we allow it to pass through the
streets of this city," he said.

But then, the first torchbearer took the flame from a lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft before running into a warehouse at Pier 48. A motorcycle escort departed, but the torchbearer was nowhere in sight.

Officials drove the Olympic torch about a mile inland and handed it off to two runners at Van Ness Avenue and Bush Street just after 2 p.m. -- away from protesters and media. 

The runners began jogging toward the Golden Gate Bridge, in the opposite direction of the crowds awaiting its passing. Further confusion followed, with the torch convoy stopping near the bridge before heading southward to the airport about 4 p.m.

Officials said the Olympic flame was taken directly to a plane at SFO,
skipping an appearance at what was to be an adhoc closing ceremony on the tarmac. The torch flight departed about 9 p.m., according to Mike McCarron, a spokesman for SFO.

The torch was traveling next to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then to a dozen other countries before arriving in China on May 4. The Olympics begin Aug. 8.

Disappointment At SF's Waterfront

As the flame traveled toward SFO, news slowly dribbled through the crowds of tens of thousands of spectators and protesters gathered along the waterfront that the torch would not be headed there.
 
Chi Zhang, a software engineer from Sunnyvale, waited to see the torch since 10 a.m. He shook his head sadly four hours later when he heard the route had been changed.

"That's surprising," he said. "We were very excited about this. This was supposed to be the only stop in the United States. I took a day off work to be here."

Another spectator, Dave Dummer, said he too was disappointed.

"That upsets me," Dummer said. "My back hurts from standing around on this lumpy sidewalk. ... This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and other people messed it up by protesting."

"I'd just like to touch someone who saw the torch," added Honne
Heller, who took a cab to try and find the torch relay along Van Ness after waiting at Justin Herman Plaza for hours.

But groups like Students for a Free Tibet said they considered the day a success, pointing to their protests as a cause for the change in the torch route plan.

"From the streets of London to Paris and now San Francisco, the global public has denied the Chinese government the stamp of approval it so desperately seeking through the Olympic torch relay and ultimately the Games," said Lhadon Tethong, the executive director of the group.

Tension Before Opening Ceremony

There were signs of tension even before the torch relay began. Pro-Tibet and pro-China groups were given side-by-side permits to demonstrate, and representatives from both sides spilled from their sanctioned sites across a major street and shouted at each other nose to nose, with no visible police presence to separate them.

At least two torchbearers decided to show their support for Tibetan independence during their separate moments in the spotlight.

After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.

"The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke," said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. "They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street."

Wheelchair-bound torchbearer Andrew Michael of San Francisco also raised a small Tibetan flag along with the torch.

"I hope that my small action today will help Tibetans be one step closer to freedom," he said afterwards.

Farther along the planned route, about 200 Chinese college students mobbed a car carrying two people waving Tibetan flags in front of the city's Pier 39 tourist destination. The students, who arrived by bus from the University of California, Davis, banged drums and chanted "Go Olympics" in Chinese.

"I'm proud to be Chinese and I'm outraged because there are so many people who are so ignorant they don't know Tibet is part of China," Yi Che said. "It was and is and will forever be part of China."

The torch's 85,000-mile, 20-nation global journey is the longest in Olympic history, and is meant to build excitement for the Beijing Games. But it has also been targeted by activists angered over China's human rights record.

Hundreds of pro-China and pro-Tibet demonstrators blew whistles and waved flags as they faced off near the site of the relay's opening ceremony. Police struggled to keep the groups apart. At least one protester was detained, and officers blocked public access to bridge leading to the opening ceremony site across from AT&T Park.

Two other people were cited in the area of Marina Boulevard and Broderick Street as the torch passed by. The two were released after the flame cleared the area.

One of the runners who planned to carry the torch dropped out earlier this week because of safety concerns, officials said. The torchbearers competed not only with people protesting China's grip on Tibet, but its support for the governments of Myanmar and Sudan.

The International Olympic Committee's executive board was expected to discuss whether to end the remaining international legs of the relay after San Francisco because of widespread protests.

San Francisco was was the only torch stop in North America. It was chosen to host the relay in part because of its large Chinese-American population.

(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)